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Moving Box Calculator
Pick your home size, tell it how full your home actually is, and add the extra spaces people always forget — the garage, the basement, the office. The calculator returns a packing list: boxes by size, tape, packing paper, and markers, plus what those supplies should cost. Every planning figure is printed below the result, so you can see exactly where the numbers come from. It runs entirely in your browser; nothing is submitted anywhere.
Build your packing list
Planning figures · Not a quoteBox counts start from the per-home-size planning table printed below — the same style of per-room box guide the truck-rental and moving-supply counters hand out — then scale for how much you own. Supply prices are typical U.S. counter prices, also printed below.
Your packing list
| Supply | Quantity |
|---|
Buying boxes is the cheap part of a move — the truck and the labor are not. Price the whole job with the Moving Cost Calculator, and if you are moving state to state, check your route's route cost ledger for what the same move costs three different ways.
Read this before you shop
These are planning figures, not a guarantee. Two homes of the same size can differ by thirty boxes. The counts below come from a transparent model — a per-home-size base table, a fullness multiplier, and flat adders for extra spaces — printed in full so you can adjust it to your own home. When in doubt, buy boxes somewhere with free returns on unused bundles and start with the kitchen: it is the most box-hungry room in almost every home.
How this list works
The model has three steps, and all three are on the page. Step one is a base table — the number of small, medium, and large boxes a typically furnished home of each size takes, in line with the per-room box guides published by major truck-rental and moving-supply retailers. Step two scales that base for how much you actually own. Step three adds flat box counts for the extra spaces the base table does not assume. Tape, paper, and markers are then derived from the box count by the ratios below.
The base table
| Home size | Small | Medium | Large | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Studio | 10 | 6 | 2 | 18 |
| 1 bedroom | 14 | 10 | 4 | 28 |
| 2 bedroom | 20 | 14 | 6 | 40 |
| 3 bedroom | 26 | 20 | 10 | 56 |
| 4 bedroom | 34 | 26 | 14 | 74 |
| 5 bedroom | 42 | 32 | 18 | 92 |
The model, in full
| Model step | Figure |
|---|---|
| Fullness — light (minimalist) | ×0.70 on the base |
| Fullness — average | ×1.00 on the base |
| Fullness — packed (full closets, collections) | ×1.30 on the base |
| Garage or storage shed | +8 boxes (4 small / 2 medium / 2 large) |
| Basement or attic | +8 boxes (4 small / 2 medium / 2 large) |
| Home office | +6 boxes (4 small / 2 medium) |
| Packing tape | 1 roll per 10 boxes, rounded up |
| Packing paper | 1 × 10 lb bundle per 12 boxes, rounded up |
| Markers | 2 per home |
| Lots of fragile items | +1 large bubble-cushion roll |
The supply prices
| Supply | Unit price |
|---|---|
| Small box (1.5 cu ft) | $1.20 |
| Medium box (3 cu ft) | $1.80 |
| Large box (4.5 cu ft) | $2.60 |
| Packing tape, per roll | $4.00 |
| Packing paper, 10 lb bundle | $12.00 |
| Marker | $2.00 |
| Bubble-cushion roll, large | $25.00 |
| Range shown | −20% (bundles/bulk) to +25% (single items) |
Why the mix leans small and medium: small boxes are for heavy things — books, tools, canned goods — because a large box of books is a box nobody can lift. Large boxes earn their space with light, bulky loads: bedding, pillows, lampshades. If your list feels light on larges, that is the model working as intended. Wardrobe boxes, dish packs, and picture boxes are specialty buys on top of this list — worth it for a full closet or a serious kitchen, and most rental counters sell them individually.